


Every Reality, Together

by WatermelonTuesdays



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotions, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Re-writing season 7 and 8, Sad, Short & Sweet, allura is alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-16 00:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19633165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatermelonTuesdays/pseuds/WatermelonTuesdays
Summary: A re-write of season 7 and 8. Kind of a fix-it, but not really.Sheith gets together an Allura doesn't die, but sad.----When Shiro first wakes up from his year long sleep inside Black, the first thing he sees is Keith. Love blooms in his heart in that moment and he never looks back.Two days later he wakes again, this time in his cryo-chamber. Keith’s voice, sounding strained and emotional, called him back from the edge of oblivion once again and now his soul clings tightly to his new body because Keith is at his side.Keith. His strength. He’s all Shiro’s ever needed.The moment the glass cover slides away, Shiro pulls Keith down into a deep and lasting kiss.





	Every Reality, Together

When Shiro first wakes up from his year long sleep inside Black, the first thing he sees is Keith. Love blooms in his heart in that moment and he never looks back. 

Two days later he wakes again, this time in his cryo-chamber. Keith’s voice, sounding strained and emotional, called him back from the edge of oblivion once again and now his soul clings tightly to his new body because Keith is at his side.

Keith. His strength. He’s all Shiro’s ever needed.

The moment the glass cover slides away, Shiro pulls Keith down into a deep and lasting kiss. 

The others burst in with a potential power source and they quickly back out again as the scene unfolds before them.

Shiro rides with Keith back to Earth. When he learns of Adam’s demise, Keith is there to lift him up, hold him through it, guide him back from despair. Shiro learns to lean on Keith, learns to accept unequivocal love. He learns that Keith likes to make up little ditties in the shower, when he’s cooking, and when he thinks he’s alone; Shiro falls ever deeper in love.

When Keith falls from the sky, Shiro’s heart rips in two. Keith’s final words of encouragement to his team ring in Shiro’s ears along with the soft apology sent on their private comm link. 

“Shiro, I’m so sorry. I love you.”

Shiro is waiting, ring in hand, when Keith wakes up in a hospital bed. They can’t hug, Keith is far too badly injured, but Shiro can lean forward and press the lightest, softest of kisses on his fiancé’s lips. He can lay his fiancé’s hand over his own and curl his fingers into a gentle hold. He can brush the tears that fill his fiancé’s gorgeous blue eyes every time he looks at the ring on his finger.

Together, Shiro and Keith herald in a new age of man. An age that reaches to the stars and beyond, spreading hope, peace, and light in their wake.

They chase Haggar and her minions throughout the universe, but the robeasts are strong and rain destruction in a never-ending parade. The paladins are spread thin, their energies nearly exhausted and the same can be said for the Atlas crew. Shiro walks through the hallways as much as he can, staying visible, keeping morale high, and maintaining their sense of hope. When he can, Keith walks at Shiro’s side, giving Shiro the boost of confidence he needs for his words of strength to ring true.

They will win this fight.

Even if it takes them to the edges of the universe; they will win.

The Atlas joins the paladins in Olkarion, and there, as Pidge taps into the planet’s energy, Shiro knows for the first time that something is wrong.

It doesn’t last long, less than a minute, but without warning Shiro’s energy plummets. He feels weak; he’s dizzy and confused. He starts to call out in distress to Keith, but then it fades. It leaves him with a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature.

When it happens again, Shiro mentions it to Keith. When it happens a third time, and longer than the others, he tells Allura.

Keith holds Shiro’s hand in a firm grip while Allura and Coran run tests. Shiro can’t understand. When he returned to Earth there had been tests galore, and he had been assured that his disease had not followed him to this new body; so why, then, did it feel like he was terminal all over again?

Answers don’t come until days later; Allura sits them both down and covers their joined hands with her own. 

Shiro’s body is rejecting his soul. The lifelines are still strong, but they are growing weaker. They have hope; there are things she wants to try, curious mixtures of science and magic that might cure him.

Allura, Hunk, and Colleen form a task group to search for Shiro’s cure. Likely, they’d have one in hand within weeks if they had the time, but they’re in a war. 

The war comes first.

Shiro knows it; Keith hates it, but he knows it too. 

Every night they are together they cling tight to the love they’ve found. Shiro knows his love for Keith is what keeps him bound to this body, and he knows that love will last far longer than the time it takes to find a cure. It will outlast the universe.

Each whisper of love, each lingering glance, each tender embrace stitches Shiro’s soul to his flesh and heals what fate tries to rip apart.

They fight on. 

Haggar suddenly disappears and they all scramble to locate her just as she begins to rend the universe asunder. 

They fight, even as it all appears hopeless, because it is not just their lives that depend on it. It is everyone’s. 

Every life in every universe in every reality.

When the time comes to follow Haggar through oblivion, Voltron and Atlas merge easily. Spearheaded by two men who share the same heart, the two ships meld together like it was always meant to be.

They fight until they can fight no longer.

Entire realities shimmer and blink out of existence in their wake. They keep going even though they’re far beyond hope. They continue, even though all is already lost.

There’s only one reality left. No one knows which it is, but it doesn’t feel like home to Shiro.

In the face of eternal nothing, they all stop fighting. Allura reaches out to Haggar and somehow, finally, she makes it through.

They leave the safety of the Atlas-Voltron and circle Haggar like a vanguard. 

Out here, standing in the very building blocks of all creation, Shiro can feel the echo of each reality’s death. It pulls at him, like an itch. At once it drains his energy and boosts it into overdrive. It’s frightening and reassuring all together, and Shiro reaches unconsciously for Keith’s hand.

The princess and the priestess speak. They are joined by the souls of loved ones past, called out of the cosmic ether for this one last stand. 

Shiro hears none of it.

The pain of the lost realities mirrors the pain of his flayed and dying soul. 

“This is the only way,” Allura tries to explain. “Honerva isn’t strong enough to do this alone. She needs someone who can shape the quintessence.”

Allura moves down along the paladins, speaking to them one by one.

Shiro is the last.

Allura’s soft touch to his cheek jolts him back to himself. He hasn’t been listening, but he understands the moment she touches him.

“No,” he says softly.

Allura tries to reassure him because she thinks he’s in denial.

He says it again. “No.” Shiro is firm this time around.

He can feel the edges of himself fading.

“No. It won’t be you, because it will be me.”

The others turn to Shiro in horror. 

Keith’s expression is indescribable. His engagement ring glints in the strange light of the ether and it pierces Shiro’s heart.

“It’s already pulling me in, using my energies to try and reclaim itself. I can feel it.” He looks at Allura with deep meaning in his eyes. “My soul has been eking out bit by bit, and without you we couldn’t stop it if we tried. I’m a goner either way. Honerva can use me to fix this. She’s done it before.”

Allura pulls away from Shiro like she’s been slapped, but she can say nothing to argue.

“Shiro,” she tries, but he holds a hand up to stop her.

“Please. I’m a dead man, Allura. You need to live. You are the hope the universe needs to get through this.” He takes Allura’s hand and places it in Lance’s. He knows the moment her hand touches Lance’s that he’s won.

He moves through the paladins the same way Allura did, offering final words of love and counsel. 

He doesn’t look at Keith.

More of his soul slips away and he nearly slumps into Hunk’s arms. He looks soft around the edges, like he’s blooming transparent. It’s ghostly and devastating; the others either stare in horror or look away.

Shiro is calm. He feels a peace within himself that can only be accounted by the slow loss of his soul.

He’s lived far longer than his allotted time. He’s done so much more than he was ever meant to do. 

When he reaches Keith he holds his love’s face between both hands and leans forward for a kiss. His eyes flicker to Keith’s and he expects to see sorrow. He expects to see despair.

He sees anger. And that fiery determination that stole Shiro’s heart in the first place.

Hot tears stream down Keith’s face as he rips Shiro’s hands from his face and holds them tight in his own. He slams their lips together in a searing kiss.

“I’m staying too.” He drops a hand to hold the back of Shiro’s neck, keeping their foreheads pressed painfully together. “You’re not leaving me again.”

His voice cracks with emotion.

He throws himself to the others so suddenly they jump back. They’re all crying now: openly weeping into their hands.

“Tell my mother I love her.” He glares at them through his own tears. “Tell her I’m where I was always meant to be.”

The hand holding Shiro’s squeezes meaningfully.

Shiro sniffs back his own tears and feels more of himself fade.

Keith pokes a finger in Lance’s direction, “DON’T make a statue of me.”

A weak murmur of a laugh runs through the others. They encircle Shiro and Keith and squeeze as tight as they can.

“You’re sure?” Shiro hears Allura whisper in Keith’s ear.

Keith only nods, but Allura can see the determination in his eyes.

Shiro can’t fight Keith on this. He should, but he doesn’t have it in him. Keith is right, his place is with Shiro, and they will do this together. Oblivion isn’t the least frightening with Keith’s hand in his. 

Besides, he knows that nothing will stop Keith from following him. Nothing ever has.

They walk together over to Honerva and stand before her. 

Shiro feels her mind join his, and a few moments later Keith’s joins them as well.

The paladin’s leave with sorrow brimming from their eyes.

At Honerva’s command, Shiro and Keith release their quintessence and reshape all realities.

As they fade into nothingness, Shiro feels the last of his energy swirl to form a safe haven in his home universe; a new Altea for Allura and Coran to call their own. Beside him, he feels Keith do the same and pour his energy into Daibazaal. 

Then together they disperse into the same nothing, and their souls traverse together to the next great unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of can't believe I wrote this. I must have been in some kind of a mood! Re-reading it gives me goosebumps.
> 
> I hope you guys like it. Honestly, I think that if this is how the show had ended, I would have been SO incredibly happy. Like, I'd be devastated! But I feel like this fits better? (Excepting there would be more Lotor redemption in my ideal ending).
> 
> My plan for my next post in 2 weeks is to post a Hance fic I wrote for one of my artist friends to go with a keychain she made. It's just a silly, sweet Hance thing, so keep an eye out if you're interested in that. If not, I'll be back on my Sheith shenanigans soon enough. I've got another mid-length Sheith fic in the works that I'm hoping to be done soon (spoiler: it's a twist on a soulmate AU).
> 
> You can find me on twitter (always) and tumblr (rarely)!  
> Twitter: @WTuesdays  
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuedays


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